Blizzard started testing World of Warcraft: Shadowlands last week, and is slowly allowing players in to test new zones and features. While the “Adventures” mission table isn’t available on the test realm yet, we should see some version of it pop up in the next few months. Whether it actually turns out to be an autobattler or not remains to be seen.
These abilities, along with the new placement call outs in the data, suggest some aspect of the mission table will involve this new autobattle mode. However, we’ve yet to see any screenshots or how it manifests in-game. It’s possible this could be a scrapped idea left in the code and datamined by accident — something game director Ion Hazzikostas warned players about last week.
Claim a covenant's power: players will be called upon to forge a bond with one of four covenants that rule Shadowlands' new zones, setting the tone for their journey through the expansion with a full covenant campaign. As they level up, they'll get new abilities based on their choice, including class-specific abilities for each Covenant—as well as developing soulbinds with specific covenant members, which grant them access to that character's specific traits and bonuses.
Alpha Beta PTR Vanilla 1.1.0 1.2.0 1.3.0 1.4.0 1.5.0 1.6.0 1.6.1 1.7.0 1.8.0 1.8.4 1.9.0 1.10.0 1.11.0 1.12.0 Burning Crusade 2.0.1 2.0.3 2.0.4 2.1.0 2.1.2 2.2.0 2.3.0 2.4.0 2.4.3 Wrath of the Lich King 3.0.2 3.0.3 3.0.8 3.1.0 3.2.0 3.2.2 3.3.0 3.3.3 Cataclysm 4.0.1 4.0.3a 4.0.6 4.1.0 4.2.0 4.2.2 4.3.0 4.3.2 Mists of Pandaria 5.0.4 5.0.5 5.1.0 5.2.0 5.3.0 5.4.0 5.4.7 Warlords of Draenor 6.0.2 6.0.3 6.1.0 6.2.0 Legion 7.0.3 7.1.0 7.1.5 7.2.0 7.2.5 7.3.0 7.3.5 Battle for Azeroth 8.0.1 8.1.0 8.1.5 8.2.0 8.3.0 Shadowlands 9.0.1
This section contains information that needs to be cleaned up. Reason: The death knight realm has already been confirmed to be the Shadowlands. Sylvanas committing suicide from ICC in EoN has already been connected to the Shadowlands. Reword still unclear things, move confirmed things to the main section of the page or remove them entirely if they are already incorporated there.
Sylvanas Windrunner, fallen leader of the Horde, has pierced the veil between Azeroth and the realm of the dead, setting in motion a series of events that threatens to upset the cosmic balance between life and death. World of Warcraft players entering the fabled Shadowlands will find the realms of the dead in upheaval. Under the normal order, departed souls were delivered to a realm appropriate to the lives they led, but now, all souls are being funneled into the Maw, where the most wicked are damned to suffer for eternity. As they seek to right the cycle and uncover the extent of Sylvanas' designs, players will forge bonds with the Covenants who hold domain over different planes within the Shadowlands.[4]

Claim a covenant's power: players will be called upon to forge a bond with one of four covenants that rule Shadowlands' new zones, setting the tone for their journey through the expansion with a full covenant campaign. As they level up, they'll get new abilities based on their choice, including class-specific abilities for each Covenant—as well as developing soulbinds with specific covenant members, which grant them access to that character's specific traits and bonuses.

The four zones that comprise the Shadowlands are ruled by "Covenants", similar to the Class Orders introduced in Legion. Each Covenant will have its own campaign, similar to the War Campaign in Battle for Azeroth, with gear specific to the faction and abilities both universal and determined by class. The four covenants are the Kyrian of Bastion, the Night Fae of Ardenweald, the Venthyr of Revendreth, and the Necrolords of Maldraxxus. Players experiencing the Shadowlands content for the first time will need to reach level 60 before they can choose to pledge themselves to a Covenant, while alts are able to do so at the start of the Shadowlands content.[5][7]

Spirit healers decide when it's time for a mortal soul to pass into the Shadowlands.[5] When a mortal dies and their soul crosses the veil between life and death, it is shepherded by the kyrian to Oribos so that they can be judged by the impassive Arbiter.[6] All of the soul's contents—deeds, misdeeds, thoughts, accomplishments, and failures—are instantly laid bare before the Arbiter, who then judges in a mere instant and sends the soul off to one of the infinite realms of the Shadowlands, each of which is ruled over by a powerful Covenant.[3][5] The Covenants are ancient and powerful orders who have existed since the Shadowlands were shaped long ago, and who bear sacred duties to help maintain the afterlife's ecosystem. Not every soul is filtered into the main four Covenants.[5] Each soul brings with it a vital force known as anima, the product of all of the soul's experiences and actions in life. Anima is the lifeblood of the Shadowlands, making trees grow and rivers flow and is the source that's drawn upon to conduct the magic of death. Great souls—both good and evil—have a lot of anima, while those who have lived humbler lives have less.[3][5] Four of the realms—Ardenweald, Bastion, Maldraxxus, and Revendreth—are especially vital to the functioning of the Shadowlands. However, there could be infinite afterlives, some small and tailored to a single person while others are vast and full of either splendor or torment. Between each realm is a cloudy space which was once rich with streams of anima connecting the different domains, but the current anima drought has caused the realms to become cut off from one another, breeding fear and mistrust among the inhabitants.[7]